From the desk (and BlackBerry) of Keith Parnell

Ever ask yourself why you should blog? Ask no longer.

Here are 8 great reasons why you should be blogging:

1. Blogging gives you a rockstar voice. Use it!
2. Blogging can work wonders in creating, managing, and molding your brand.
3. Blogging provides a way to create meaningful conversations.
4. Blogging can, and at times be a primay tool to, help with reputation management.
5. Blogging can help you be fundamentally successful with inbound marketing, link building, and lead generation.
6. Your competitors are already there!
7. Your potential customers are there.
8. A few influential statistics:
   1. 73.6% of North Americans are on the Internet*.
   2. 83% on Internet users watch videos online**.
   3. 49% of Internet users use a search engine (Google, Bing, Yahoo!, etc.) every day***.
   4. 73% of Internet users read blogs**.
   5. For companies that blog versus non-blogging companies****:
      1. 126% increase in monthly leads generated.
      2. 55% increase in visitors.
      3. 97% more inbound links.
      4. 434% more indexed pages in the search engines.

If these points, and especially the statistics, don’t convince you that you should be blogging, I give up. Let’s do it. Send me your blog address. If you do, I promise that I’ll put you in my Google Reader and keep up on your activities.

* source: Internet World Stats
** source: Universal McCann
*** source: Pew Research
**** source: Hubspot

Image credit: flickr.com/photos/crystaljingsr

RSS and Facebook readers: click here to view and enter comments.

On Twitter? Follow me at @parnellk63.

Listening to In My Place by Coldplay.

I get this question quite a bit. What is inbound marketing and why should I care?

Simply, inbound marketing is the opposite of outbound marketing. Remember the old days of setting up outbound call centers (telemarketing), creating television and radio commercials, and pushing out email blasts to get your word out? Well, that inefficient and expensive method of advertising and marketing is no longer a necessity.

Think smart website design and development.
Think online call-to-actions.
Think strategic blog content.
Think SEO (search engine optimization).
Think social media marketing.
Think audio and video marketing.
Think efficient online lead generation.

All of these strategies and methods are important pieces of the concept, inbound marketing.

What inbound marketing methods most interest you? What larger internet marketing methods do you already have in place?

RSS and Facebook readers: click here to view and enter comments.

On Twitter? Follow me at @parnellk63.

Listening to Blame It On Me by Barenaked Ladies.

Thanks Mike for another great webinar!

Here are my notes from the webinar for you guys. Sorry for the bad formatting; I was quickly typing as Mike ran through his slides.

Website Redesign Tips & Tricks
Mike Volpe, @mvolpe, VP Marketing, @hubspot

Why do a redesign? Because “marketing” is changing.

Outbound marketing is harder and more difficult because people / consumers have more control to turn you off.

Inbound marketing is much more effective. <- We, @JASEgroup, are proof in the pudding for this concept!

SEO, blogging, etc are much more effective towards a productive website.

The wrong reasons for a website redesign:
We need a new corporate look and feel.
We are tired of our old website.
It’s been 12 months since our last redesign.
The design department wants to.
Our CEO wants to.

The right reasons for a website redesign:
To get found by more prospects.
For us to convert more prospects into leads and customers.
Branding might be a good reason if it will drive the goals above.

“Business websites are for lead generation.”

If you had to choose, you don’t want beautiful & empty, you do want ugly & crowded. Traffic is king.

Keys to a successful website:

Websites should attract prospects. It should function like a magnet. i.e., “inbound marketing”.
Create great content:
Blog articles.
Podcasts.
Videos.
Photos.
Presentations.
eBooks.

Optimized that content for search (SEO).
Promote that content using social media.
Websites should convert visitors into leads.
Having a lot of landing pages on your website and be able to convert them into leads.
Lots of call-to-actions.
All call-to-actions should link to a landing page.

Produce measurable ROI:
“Websites should produce a measurable ROI.”
A redesign without measurable improvements is a waste of time.
Know your stats from the old website before starting.

Website redesign process:
Audit your website, then protecdt your key assets. Don’t change everything just because …
Take an inventory of your website assets - Content, Inbound links, Keyword rankings, Conversion tools.

Protect your assets during the redesign.

Spend resources on creating content, more than beautiful design.

97% more inbound links for companies that blog.

55% more website visitors for companies that blog.

Blogging increases your Twitter (social media) reach.

Make is easy to run conversion experiments.

Track your conversion rate on your landing pages and compare what works.

Make it easy to measure results.

Measure these metrics:
Traffic - how many people are coming to the website and where are they coming from.
Leads - conversion rates of traffic to leads.
Sales - conversion reates of leads to customers.
By channel - SEO, social media, etc.

RSS and Facebook readers: click here to view and enter comments.

On Twitter? Follow me at @parnellk63.

Listening to Don’t Know Why by Norah Jones.

Do you wonder who is JASE Group?
Do you wonder what JASE Group does?
Wonder no longer!

Related info:

http://www.JASEgroup.com
http://www.CoffeeWithTheCEO.com
http://www.jasegroup.com/brand_management
http://www.jasegroup.com/inbound_marketing
http://www.jasegroup.com/design
http://www.jasegroup.com/blog

RSS and Facebook readers: click here to view and enter comments.

On Twitter? Follow me at @parnellk63.

Listening to After the Storm by Norman Brown.

photo credit: flickr.com/photos/madebygirl

I agree with Chris. Don’t take the holidays off from creating content for your blog.

Many companies do scale back on a lot of tasks during the Thanksgiving-to-Christmas-to-New Year holiday period. This is our opportunity to shine.

I equate this time period to the efforts we have preached about during this tough economic downturn in our country. While advertising dollars are scarce, be creative, come up with cool inbound marketing tactics to generate leads. Be smart and build your online marketing presence while your competitors are doing nothing.

What do you think? Have you increased your internet marketing activities? Have you increased your blogging?

RSS and Facebook readers: click here to view and enter comments.

On Twitter? Follow me at @parnellk63.

Listening to Boys of Summer by Don Henley.

A couple of years ago our company, JASE Group, decided that we were going to commit wholeheartedly to inbound marketing. The marketing and advertising strategies we had previously used for our company just were not working as effectively as we hoped.

Our process began as a test project around our blog material and extended out to a few of the social communities we were actively involved in. We began creating a massive amount of content then instigated, created and encouraged as many links back to this content as possible.

Guess what? It worked. And it still works. Every day.

Here are a few ways our inbound marketing strategies have influenced our daily business life:

1. Lead generation from our company website and blog has easily tripled in the volume of quality leads. We have essentially hired an additional sales member (our website) without the payroll of an additional person.
2. With inbound marketing we apply less efforts to traditional time consuming advertising campaigns - no more phone book ads, no more (offline) television commercials, no more radio advertising, no more trade show exhibits.
3. Our internet marketing initiatives have made us more effective towards the goals of our sales team. The leads we generate from our online web entities are more qualified than previous offline initiatives’ leads.
4. We are more efficient. Period. Time spent is more directly attributable to results.
5. Our current online marketing initiatives are much less expensive than traditional campaigns. Couple this with the points made above, and we have a winner.
6. Since we spend much less time worrying every single detail of outbound marketing items such as media buys and almost-impossible-to-measure-ROI, we have more time to work on our clients’ initiatives.

Do you wonder how inbound marketing can work for your business? Our team would be glad to talk with you.

Basics of an Inbound Marketing Plan

RSS and Facebook readers: click here to view and enter comments.

On Twitter? Follow me at @parnellk63.

Listening to I’ll Stand By You by Bonnie Rait.

Let’s talk about an upcoming initiative where JASE will be working with a new client to establish an inbound marketing campaign with the direct purpose of lead generation from their online web portals. The key aspects of inbound marketing include inbound links, or links from other websites and blogs, to your website and keyword rich, fresh content on your website.

RSS and Facebook readers: click here to watch the video.

Related Information:
http://www.coffeewiththeceo.com
http://www.jasegroup.com/inbound_marketing
http://www.jasegroup.com/marketing
http://keithparnell.com

RSS and Facebook readers: click here to view and enter comments.

On Twitter? Follow me at @parnellk63.

Is the strategy behind your marketing plan shooting for the right audience? Does each initiative, including your inbound marketing tactics, identify with your sales goals?

Make sure your marketing firm doesn’t leave you all alone with your ideas.

Photo taken of a house in the middle of the Nansemond River in Virginia

RSS and Facebook readers: click here to view and enter comments.

I had morning today coffee with a diverse group of professionals from Hampton Roads at Panera Bread in Ghent, Norfolk, VA. The group talked social media and new media strategies for their businesses, shared marketing tactics and analyzed case studies from their own experiences. Specifically the group talked about search engine optimization, inbound marketing, traditional marketing strategies, online marketing strategies, online advertising and social media strategies that work for their businesses.

RSS and Facebook readers: click here to watch the video.

Related Information:
http://www.ashleyswindell.com
http://www.coffeewiththeceo.com
http://www.jasegroup.com
http://www.jasegroup.com/advertising
http://www.jasegroup.com/brand_management
http://www.jasegroup.com/inbound_marketing
http://www.jasegroup.com/internet_marketing
http://www.jasegroup.com/marketing
http://www.jasegroup.com/online_marketing
http://www.jasegroup.com/search_engine_marketing
http://www.jasegroup.com/social_media
http://keithparnell.com
http://www.kingdombailbonding.webs.com
http://www.mobile757.com
http://www.nancychandler.com
http://needlocalhelp.com
http://www.newmediaconventions.com

RSS and Facebook readers: click here to view and enter comments.

photo credit: thundersquee.com

I’ve been working through several major topics the last few months with the goal of publishing them as eBooks on the web. A couple of the topics, including personal and corporate branding strategies, inbound marketing techniques, yes’s and no’s of blogging, and social media business strategies that work, have emerged at the forefront and should be published soon.

With the publication dates drawing near, I’m finding myself at another crossroads, or will be soon. Should I publish the eBooks as free downloads? I’m talking totally free - as in, don’t even collect email addresses prior to download.

I’m thinking in my minds eye that I should, if for no other reason than to increase the posibilities of viral distribution via email, Twitter, Facebook, blogs, LinkedIn, etc.

But being of a marketing frame of mind, I’m also hearing from the other shoulder that I should think lead generation and at least collect contact info at the time of download.

What do you think? Would a contact info gate before the eBook download prevent you from stepping further?

Research from the field:

• David Meerman Scott seems to say no to collecting info in this post and this post.
• Ann Handley lays out both points of view nicely in this post.
• Susan Gunelius agrees with removing the registration gate in this post.

Did any of these change your mind?

RSS and Facebook readers: click here to view and enter comments.

Yesterday Walt, our Creative Director, and I had the pleasure of visiting the shop of a local client. John Manus was gracious enough to show us around. Adver-tees has just signed with JASE to provide Internet Marketing consultation and to guide and assist with their inbound marketing initiatives.

Here are a few photos from our visit to the Adver-tees shop in Chesapeake. Adver-tees specializes in screen printing, embroidery and promotional items.

Adver-tees
www.bestdealonshirts.com
942 Canal Drive
Chesapeake, VA 23323
(757) 487-1424

RSS and Facebook readers: click here to view and enter comments.

I’m very excited about the queued reading I have on my plate right now.

I’m in the middle of David Meerman Scott’s The New Rules of Marketing & PR. Rosemary Thornton (a JASE client) personally delivered copies of The Houses That Sears Built and The Ugly Woman’s Guide to Internet Dating to us yesterday. Now with the amazon.com delivery today of Chris Brogan’s & Julien Smith’s Trust Agents and Brian Halligan’s & Dharmesh Shah’s Inbound Marketing books, I’m in reading heaven. I’ll be up for air by Christmas.

Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

photo credit: www.timbarcz.com

Here are a few quick blogging tips to keep in mind so you don’t bore your readers stiff:

1. Write for your audience. Not for you. Not for your boss. Write for your readers.
2. Don’t write a book. Booorrring. If your readers want to read multiple pages, they’ll download a new book onto their Kindle.
3. Have a purpose. Don’t just ramble on your blog. You can do that on Twitter, JASEzone or some other microblog platform. Write blog articles that have a point to make or a question to ask. Which leads to the next point …
4. Ask questions. Get your readers involved in the communication.
5. Share information. Don’t fall into the old school mindset that you need to hoard your “mojo”. Believe me, it’s not yours. Someone else has already thought of it.
6. Be Switzerland. This one is hard sometimes. I know. But try to be neutral.
7. Publish your articles on a schedule. Or atleast a semi schedule. Don’t sweat missing a beat or two but try to be considerate and thankful of your readers that are coming back to you for information.
8. Link. Link. Link. Out. Link to your competitors. Link to other ‘experts’. They will appreciate the recognition and do the same back to you. Trackbacks work. I promise.

What are some other tips you can think of?

RSS and Facebook readers: click here to view and enter comments.

Coffee with the CEO: Let’s Live Social Media in Ghent

Date: Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Time: 10:00am - 11:00am
Location: Panera Bread, 739 West 21st Street, Norfolk, VA

Description:
Come out to Panera Bread on 21st street in Ghent, Norfolk, VA on Tuesday morning at 10:00 AM and have coffee with Keith Parnell, CEO of JASE Group Marketing & Advertising and CLO of NeedLocalHelp.com.

No agenda. No sales. Just sharing.

Talk social media.
Talk new media.
Talk about your business.
Talk about how to grow your business.

Let’s live social media!

Register here on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=164193846985

RSS and Facebook readers: click here to view and enter comments.

Let’s talk about mixing the two worlds of offline advertising and online advertising. Don’t allow advertising budget segregations to not let inbound marketing do its job. Inbound marketing is a money maker for any size business.

Watch the free video here.

RSS and Facebook readers: click here to view and enter comments.